Their Second Chance Love

He watched as she shored up her slender shoulders. No doubt gathering the emotional courage to step into the room, into the reality of the situation she found herself in.

Logan followed, wheeling her suitcase up against the glass wall by the entrance where he stood waiting, giving Hope a moment of privacy as she moved to stand beside Jack’s hospital bed.

Reaching for Jack’s limp hand, Hope covered it with her own. “Oh, Daddy,” she said as her worried gaze took in the medical equipment that surrounded the head of his hospital bed. Leaning over the bed rail, she said softly, “Daddy, it’s Hope. Can you hear me?”

He stirred, his lashes lifting slightly as he peered up at his only child. “Baby girl?” he said, his thick brows furrowing in confusion.

She managed a bright smile, as she settled into the chair next to the bed rail. “You gave me a scare.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked in surprise.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”

“But how did you know I was...” His words trailed off as his tired gaze shifted to where Logan stood waiting. One lone salt-and-pepper brow lifted. “You called her?”

He nodded. Not that he’d wanted to. “She had a right to know.”

“Not one for sticking to the plan, I see,” Jack grumbled.

“No, sir,” Logan replied with a shake of his head as he stepped closer. “Not when it means keeping something this serious from your daughter.” No matter how poorly things had ended between the two of them, he knew what it was like to lose a parent. Hope had already lost her momma. If Jack, God forbid, took a turn for the worse, she deserved the chance to say goodbye. Even if she had pretty much abandoned Jack when she’d moved away, her visits too few and far too short. Jack deserved more from his only child.

“I see,” his friend said with clear disapproval.

Betraying Jack wasn’t something Logan had done lightly. But his momma had raised him to do the right thing. This, in his opinion, had been the right thing to do, whether Jack liked it or not. “I’d do it again if the situation called for it,” he admitted.

Hope turned her head, looking up at him. “And I thank you. I’m sure it wasn’t an easy call to make, seeing as how Daddy asked you to keep this to yourself.”

She had no idea how difficult. Not only because of the news he’d had to give her, but also because hearing her sweet voice again had succeeded in twisting him up in emotional knots all over again. It had also stirred up the bitterness and hurt he’d long since tucked away.

“If not for your finding Daddy...” she continued, emotion drawing her voice tight.

“Yes,” Jack agreed with a nod. “If you hadn’t been there... Thank you, son. For everything.”

“Don’t thank me,” he told the older man with a smile. “Thank the man above. Appears He’s still got plans for you.”

“Appears that way.”

“Well, now that you’ve got family here, I’ll be on my way,” he said, needing to put some distance between himself and Hope. Pulling Jack’s smartphone from the front pocket of his flannel shirt, Logan placed it atop the narrow lap table that hovered over the foot of Jack’s hospital bed. “In case you need to reach me. Take care of yourself, Jack. I’ll be by tomorrow to check on you.” Looking to Jack’s daughter, he tipped his hat. “Hope.” Then turning, he made his way toward the open doorway.

“Logan,” Jack called after him, his voice weak.

He stopped then turned to find knowing eyes watching him.

“Everything will work itself out, son. The good Lord’s got plans for you, as well.”

He didn’t miss Hope stiffening at her daddy’s words of faith in the Lord. Just as she had earlier.

He acknowledged Jack’s words with another nod and then walked out of the ICU room. Back to what he knew best—landscaping.

But when his thoughts should have turned to that day’s business, they stubbornly refused. They were caught up in the change he’d seen in Hope. She wasn’t the sweet, smiling girl he remembered. The one he’d spent countless Sundays sitting beside in church all those years ago. The one he’d laughed with. Learned with. Loved. No, the woman he’d seen today had lost that spark of joy that used to light her green eyes. Even more troubling, she seemed to have lost her trust in God’s will.

He sighed, wishing he could push the troubling thoughts away. Getting caught up in Hope again wasn’t something he would ever allow to happen. But it didn’t mean he wasn’t affected by her rejection of a faith she’d once held dear.

Granted, there had been a time when her trust in the Lord had been shaken. Right after her momma had lost her long, courageous battle with cancer. But she’d been young and scared and hurting. His momma, who had been close with Hope’s, had done her best to step in and help fill in some of the void. She’d also been there to help an eleven-year-old little girl understand and accept that the Lord had a far greater plan for her momma.

Now he had to wonder if Hope had ever really accepted that. Had she merely put on a front about having faith all these years just as his own brother had done after the loss of his wife? Logan couldn’t even begin to guess what was going on inside her head. He’d already been so wrong about so many things where Hope Dillan was concerned. Best thing for him to do was keep his distance.

* * *

Hope watched him go, tears pooling up in her eyes. Logan Cooper was no longer the boy that she had fallen in love with all those years ago. He was a full-grown man. Tall, lean, broad-shouldered and with an even greater ability to make her heart pound. He was everything she had always dreamed about. Everything she could ever hope for. Not that it mattered. She had lost him long ago.

Frowning, she turned back to her daddy, who was watching her, his tightly pressed lips pulling downward. “Are you hurting?” she asked worriedly, forcing all thoughts of Logan Cooper from her mind.

“I’m thinking I should be asking you that question,” her daddy said.

She forced a smile. “I’m not the one lying in a hospital bed. Now stop worrying yourself over me.”

“No can do, honey,” he replied. “You’re my baby girl. It’s my job to worry over you.”

“Well, there isn’t anything to be concerned about,” she said, wondering if she was trying to convince her daddy or herself. Seeing Logan again, talking to him again, being so near to him, had left her thoroughly shaken. Pushing thoughts of him from her mind, she said, “And it’s my turn to worry about you. Not the other way around.” Standing, she reached out to dim the light over the hospital bed. “Now get some rest. We can talk more later.”

Jack nodded, his heavy-lidded eyes drifting shut.

Hope sat watching him for a long time, knowing how close she had come to losing him. The thought of no longer having him in her life had shaken her to the core. The Lord had already taken her mother away. A hurt that had only deepened when she’d learned she would probably never be a mother herself.

As it had so many times over the past nine years, a deep ache filled her at the thought. Her hand moved to smooth over her flat stomach, unshed tears filling her eyes. It would never grow round with a child. She would never feel the stirrings of life that came with carrying a baby of her own. Never find the true happiness she’d come so close to having before her life as she had known it came crashing down around her.

Chapter Two

“Logan?” his brother said, concern knitting his brows as he studied Logan from across the door’s threshold. Boone, the bloodhound mix Carter had adopted from the pound for Audra’s children, stood faithfully at his side.

“I know it’s late,” Logan began apologetically as he reached down to give the dog a scruff behind his ear.

“It’s never too late for family,” Carter countered. “Come on in.” He stepped aside, Boone moving with him as he swung the front porch door open wider.

Removing his cowboy hat, Logan made his way inside, his gaze sweeping the entryway of the old farmhouse his brother’s wife had purchased when she’d moved to Texas from Chicago with her two young children. Carter, who co-owned Cooper Construction with their brother, Nathan, had helped Audra with renovations on her house and the two had ended up falling in love. Now married and on the verge of adding to their already existent brood, Carter was happier than Logan had ever seen him.

“Audra in bed already?” Logan asked with a glance toward the stairs. He knew the children would be for sure. They both had school in the morning.

“Not yet,” his brother replied. “She’s in the kitchen cleaning up after the finger painting session she had with our little artists in the making after dinner. Who knew my wife was such a messy finger painter?”

“Maybe Alyssa could give her finger painting lessons,” he suggested with a grin. Their oldest brother Nathan’s fiancée had a degree in interior design and had taught art classes to children at the rec center where she used to live while working part-time for an interior design firm. Not wanting to be so far away from his brother and his little girl, Katie, Alyssa had left the life she had built for herself in San Antonio and was now teaching art classes on weekends at Braxton’s newly built recreation center. She was also in charge of interior design for any of Cooper Construction’s projects that called for it.

His brother nodded. “Might have to consider that.”

Logan cast a glance toward the front door. He really should go. Not stick around to lay his problems at his brother’s feet. Carter already had his plate full with a new wife, helping to raise her two beautiful children, whom he’d recently adopted, and a baby on the way.

“I know that look.”

He looked back at his brother. “What look?”

“The one that says you’re considering making a run for the hills,” Carter replied.

When they were teens and something upset them, one or all of them would take to the hills where they’d hike and camp and work through whatever it was that was bothering them. There was just something about the peace and tranquility of being surrounded by nature, not to mention the feeling of being closer to God that being higher up in the hills gave a man. But when it came to his troubled thoughts where Hope was concerned, there would be no answers.

“I feel like it,” he answered honestly. If he thought it would help to clear his head, he’d be driving up into the hills right now. Instead, he’d come seeking his brother’s counsel.

“So what’s up?”

“Jack’s in the hospital,” he said with a heavy sigh, struggling to keep the tide of emotion from washing over him.

Concern immediately lit Carter’s eyes. Understandably so. They were all close with Jack Dillan. “What happened?”

Logan dragged a hand back through the thick waves of his hair. “He suffered a stroke at work this morning. I found him on the floor of his office when I stopped by to pick up an order.”

“Why didn’t you call? Nathan and I would have met you at the hospital.”

“I knew you were finishing up a job in the next town over,” he explained. “Figured I’d wait until we had some answers.”

“No wonder you’re not yourself,” his brother replied. “Is he gonna be okay?”

“He’s got a long road ahead of him until he’s fully recovered, but the good Lord’s seen fit to give Jack more time here on this earth.”

“Praise God for that,” his brother muttered. “Does Hope know yet?”

Logan nodded. “I called to let her know what had happened as soon as the ambulance pulled away with Jack. She caught the first flight out of San Diego and managed to get to the hospital a little after four.”

Carter’s assessing gaze studied him. “So you’ve seen her, then?”

“I was there when she arrived.”

“That also explains this mood that you’re in,” his brother acknowledged.

“It’s not what you think.”

“That she refused to enter the hospital until you left?” his brother surmised, not bothering to hide his irritation where Hope was concerned. “Because that’s what I expect happened.”

Nathan and Carter were none too happy with Hope for the way she had handled the post-breakup with their younger brother. With the exception of the tearful embrace she had given him at his parents’ and Isabel’s funerals, her intentional avoidance of Logan and the scant number of times she could drag herself back to Braxton to visit Jack had his brothers harboring more than a little resentment toward her.

Then again, Logan harbored his own fair share of that same emotion where Hope Dillan was concerned.

“It didn’t happen like that,” he heard himself saying in Hope’s defense. Though why he felt the need to stick up for her was beyond him.

“So you left before she got there?”

He probably should have. Then he wouldn’t be struggling over thoughts of the past and feeling things he’d spent years suppressing. But Hope had looked so lost when he’d looked up to see her standing in that hospital corridor. All he’d wanted to do at that moment was comfort her. Thankfully, he hadn’t followed through with what instinct had been pushing him to do. It would have undoubtedly ended up with her pushing him away—again. And he’d had more than his fill of Hope rejecting him.

“Neither of us ran,” Logan muttered as he stood fingering the brim of his hat. “We were both there for Jack. It had nothing to do with us.” That was how it had to be, because there was no “us” when it came to him and Hope.

Carter nodded. “I’ll be sure to say an extra prayer tonight asking for the Lord to help ease your way while Hope’s home.” He reached out to clap a hand over Logan’s shoulder, giving it a supportive squeeze. “Come on in to the kitchen with me and we’ll have us a cup of coffee.”

“I really should be going. It’s been a long day.”

“Audra made pecan pie...”

Logan hesitated a long moment before a smile quirked his lips. “Pecan pie, huh?”

“Complete with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and caramel syrup,” his brother tempted even further, knowing Logan had the biggest sweet tooth of any of the Cooper boys.

Maybe he would stay. Just for a bit. And by the time he finished with his coffee and dessert he’d have his emotions, as far as Hope Dillan was concerned, corralled once more. Because there was no way he was gonna risk putting his heart on the line ever again. Not for Hope. Not for any woman.

* * *

Hope was startled awake by the familiar tune of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” She sat upright in the chair next to her dad’s hospital bed. A quick glance assured the phone’s ringtone hadn’t awakened him as it had her. Hurriedly, she snatched the phone out of her purse, bringing it to her ear as she got to her feet and hurried from the cubicle. “Hello?” she answered in a hushed tone.

“Wasn’t sure you’d answer,” a voice far huskier than it had once been said at the other end of the line.

“Logan?” she said somewhat groggily.

A groan sounded. “I woke you.”

“I was only catnapping.”

“You probably needed it,” he replied. “Getting news like you got today tends to take a toll on a person. I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to bed.”

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “My back and neck thank you for waking me. But I’m not home. I’m still at the hospital. I guess I drifted off in the chair by Daddy’s hospital bed in a rather uncomfortable position.”

“How is Jack?”

“He’s doing well,” she replied, keeping her voice low as she stepped out of ICU and made her way to the family waiting area just around the corner. There she would be able to talk without waking her daddy, or disturbing the other patients. “If all goes well tonight, they’ll be moving him to a private room tomorrow.”

“Thank the Lord for that,” Logan breathed, his relief, as well as the faith he steadfastly clung to, evident in his voice. A faith she herself no longer looked to when times were bad. “I’m sorry to bother you on your cell phone again, but when I tried Jack’s it went straight to voice mail. I forgot that I had shut his phone off after calling you this morning.”

“You added my number to your contact list?”

“No. I would never presume to do that. It’s in my head,” he explained.

“You still have a knack for remembering things others would more easily forget,” she said with a wistful smile.

“You don’t have to worry about my calling you after you’ve gone back to California. For now, if need be, I know I’ll be able to reach you. The reason I called was to let Jack know that I’m gonna swing by Hope’s Garden on my way home from Carter’s to check on things. I didn’t want either of you to worry yourselves over it tonight.”

She started to tell him that his call wasn’t a bother, then decided it best that he believed that it was. Especially because the sound of his voice was something she could get far too used to hearing. So caught up in her thoughts of keeping a wall up with Logan, it took a moment longer than it should have for what he’d said to settle in. Hope shifted the cell to her other ear. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I don’t mind.”

He had already done more than enough for her daddy. Now that she was home, it was her responsibility to step in and see to things until he was back on his feet again. “I know you don’t,” she said. “But as soon as I can round up a taxi, I’ll be able to head home and see to those things myself.”

“A taxi?”

How else did he expect her to get home? “While I could probably make the walk from here to Braxton, it might take a while, and doing so in the dark and in the pouring rain might be pushing it.”

A warm chuckle sounded at the other end of the line. “You’ve been living in the big city for a mite too long, little darlin’, if you think you’re gonna round up a taxi around these parts, with the exception of the airport, with any ease,” he said with an amused chuckle. “That’d be like trying to find an ocean of in the middle of the Sahara Desert.”

Those two words wrapped around her, making her heart ache—little darlin’. She had to wonder if Logan even realized that he’d called her that. The nickname he’d given her back in high school when he’d first started working for her daddy at Hope’s Garden. Not that she was all that little at five-foot six-inches tall. But to a boy well over six feet in height back then, and to the even taller man he’d grown up into, it was easy to see why Logan considered her little. But she was no longer his darlin’. No matter what her heart still longed for.

“I hadn’t given it much thought,” she answered honestly. Not with her focus centered for the most part on her daddy and the long road to recovery it sounded like he was going to have ahead of him.

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” came his muttered reply on the other end of the line.

What exactly did Logan mean by that? She opened her mouth to ask and then closed it, deciding it best to let it go. He had every right to be angry with her. Truth was she was surprised he’d been as cordial as he had been, considering how she’d ended things between them.

Logan wasn’t one to quit on those he cared about, and if things were different, they’d more than likely be married with a few little ones running around. But things weren’t different. And she’d had to break his heart to ensure he’d have those Cooper sons and daughters he’d always longed for.

“Hope? You still there?”

His voice pulled her back to the present. “Yes. I’m here.”

“Thought maybe we got cut off there for a second. Phone service can be iffy inside hospitals.”

She didn’t correct his assumption. It was better he think her silence was due to phone service issues rather than her troubled thoughts.

“If you’re ready to head back to your daddy’s place,” Logan said, saving her the need for any response, “I could run on over to Coopersville and pick you up. Then we can see to the nursery together before I head home for the night. I left in such an all-fire hurry this morning once the ambulance had gone, I didn’t shut the register down or see to the plants.”

“I would have done the same thing. And thanks for the offer, but I’ll give Autumn a call to come get me.”

“Still doing your best to avoid me, I see,” he said evenly.

“I think we’re beyond that now,” she said, wishing it were true. But avoiding Logan kept her heart from wanting things she couldn’t have. From wanting him. “Besides, I wanted to let Autumn know about Daddy and maybe do some catching up.”

Autumn and Summer Myers, Braxton’s only claim to identical twins, had been her closest friends all through school. After high school graduation, they’d all gone off to different colleges. And with everything that had been going on in her life at that time, the breakup with Logan, dealing with health issues and her anger with God, Hope had withdrawn from everyone she’d been close to, even her dearest friends.

“If you’re counting on Autumn to come get you, you might be in for a long wait,” he told her. “She’s in Atlanta for some sort of Realtor conference this week.”

How did he know that? A heart-pinching thought passed through her mind. Were the two of them seeing each other? It wasn’t as if she expected Logan to spend the rest of his life pining away after her. She ended their relationship just so he could make his life with someone else. He deserved someone who could give him children. That would make him happy. Still, the thought of her best friend and the man Hope had given her heart to being romantically involved sat like a boulder in the pit of her stomach.

“Oh,” was all she could manage. She should have thought to have the taxi she’d taken from the airport drop her off at home first. Then she could have driven her daddy’s truck into Coopersville. But she’d been in such a panic that all she’d wanted to do from the moment her flight landed was get there to see for herself that he was all right.

A heavy sigh sounded at the other end of the line. “I’ll come get you.”

“No,” she blurted out in a panic. “I mean, don’t worry about me. I’ve got my suitcase with me. I’ll just spend the night here.”

“And how do you plan on getting home tomorrow?”

Hope frowned. That was a good question. There was no one else she could think to call. She had pretty much cut everyone she’d known growing up out of her life.

“I can leave the past in the past where it belongs if that’s what you’re worried about,” Logan said.

“Why are you doing this?” she replied, her guilt at what she’d done to him all those years ago pushing to the surface. “Offering to give me a ride when you of all people should wanna stay as far away from me as possible.” Her words ended on a quiver as she fought the urge to cry over his unexpected kindness.

“The easiest answer would be that I’m doing my Christian duty. But that wouldn’t be the whole truth of it,” he answered honestly. “I’m also doing it for Jack. He needs to focus on getting better, not focus his strength on worrying about you. Which, I might add, your daddy’s done every single day of his life since you moved away.”

He had? The guilt was swallowing her whole. “He doesn’t need to worry about me.”

“People tend to do that when they care about someone.”

His tone hinted that she wouldn’t understand that level of caring. She did. She had cared enough to let Logan go. Loved him enough to set him free to find the happiness he deserved. But then he wouldn’t know that. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

A long silence fell over the line before Logan responded. “I’m sorry for not accepting your decision to end things between us,” he said. “I should’ve respected your wishes and let you go. But I was young and had a lot of false notions about what my future held for me. For us.”

“Logan...” she said, wanting to tell him that she’d wanted all the same things he had. Instead she fell silent. She couldn’t offer up any explanation that would make him understand. It was too late.

“Let me finish,” he told her. “What we had was special, but I know now that we were too young to be talking about marriage and kids. At least one of us had the sense to see that and do something about it. And you can stop worrying about being in the same room as me every time you come home, because I’ve come to terms with the fact that some things are just not meant to be.”